Just Waiting and Hoping

Writers: Jane
Date Posted: 23rd February 2008

Characters: O'rian
Description: Odarian and his fellow Candidates discuss the upcoming Hatching.
Location: Dolphin Cove Weyr
Date: month 8, day 25 of Turn 4

"Another clutch, another round of Candidacy," Ravere said when he joined his sister and Odarian at the table. "Ready to go through the whole thing again?" he asked the apprentice healer who had Stood for the first time for Nyith's last clutch.

"Too embarrassed to pull out now," Odarian said and he wasn't entirely joking. All the knowledge in the world about Hatchings hadn't helped much with the disappointment of not finidng a lifemate on the Sands the first time he Stood. He felt, unreasonably, he knew, that when he had finally made up his mind to Stand - something he had been putting off from the day he apprenticed - that everything should have fallen into place. Decision made, Hatching attended, lifemate Impressed. Somehow it seemed to under-value the importance of his decision to give up his craft when he had ended up retreating from the Sands alone. "Every Hatching now until I'm too old to Stand. What a prospect!"

"And if you Impress, fighting Thread once a sevenday for the next four decades," blonde-haired Rilisa pointed out. "Or if you remain a healer ... Decades and decades of dealing with _sick_ people."

"He likes sick people," Ravere pointed out. "That's why he became a healer."

Odarian had never quite considered that his choice of craft had been prompted by a liking for sick people, but he let the comment pass. "All right. But being a weyrling and then fighting Thread - they're _doing_
something. Just Standing again and again is just _waiting_."

Rilisa smiled at the senior apprentice. He always seemed indifferent to his dark-haired, blue-eyed good looks and had certainly never tried to trade on his father's rank when O'dan had been Weyrleader. _That_ had gone some way toward protecting him from people's opinions when his father's error of judgement had caused so many injuries and fatalities among the fighting Wings. "I never thought you were so driven to _do_,"
she said. "You were always the one with your head in some book or other. Always studying. And now you can't wait to be out there fighting Thread. Isn't that a bit of a change for you?"

Was it? Odarian thought about his craft work. He still liked to study, didn't he? Somewhat reassured he remembered the evening before when he had sat down in the chair beside his bed and read his way through a text on surgery. He was fairly sure he didn't want to get into that field but he was enjoying the reading.

Rilisa was right, though. His studious attitude didn't extend to Candidacy, but was that unexpected? Healing was one thing; defending Pern from Thread was quite another and required a different attitude.
What good would studying do if he became a dragonrider? What was there to study?

Even as he thought the question he winced, thinking of the times he had seen his father with large hides showing formations and fighting plans.
Weather effects, too. Uncomfortably he acknowledged that he was seeing dragonriding as something that needed nothing more than a dragon and a willing rider.

Had his father seen things that way? Was that where things had gone wrong? Or had it been -

No. He couldn't afford to spend his life trying to figure out his father's life. There was enough to try to figure out in his own.

"There are things I could be studying ..."

Ravere groaned, waving his table knife at his sister. "You've created a monster!"

The sloe-eyed young woman just laughed. "Didn't take much creating."

Odarian smiled at the pair. "I'm sure it won't cause either of you and problems so why worry?"

"You'll want us to study with you," Ravere predicted with a sigh. "I just know it. You'll say: 'Ravere, it can't hurt just to read over this,' and I'll be reading for a sevenday."

"Always nice to have a study partner," the healer apprentice admitted.
And the company of the seventeen-Turn-old siblings was always welcome.
"Thanks for the suggestion, Rilisa. And if I Impress this time -" He was far more reluctant to hope, this second time around than he had been for Nyith's clutch. "- I'll tell everybody it was your idea that made all the difference."

Rilisa smiled but Ravere sniggered. "If that was all it took to guarantee Impression ..."

"There doesn't seem to be any pattern to it," Rilisa said in kinder tone than her brother's. "Standing is just waiting and hoping."

"I'm hoping we don't have to wait forever," her brother muttered and Odarian nodded in agreement.

Last updated on the March 2nd 2008

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Just Waiting and Hoping